Rigging the game of reality
I have lost track of how many times I have come accross people who believe they are objective and neutral when talking about what is real and what isn't. Time and time again they justify this by talking about how they are open to any belief..for instance in this post by someone calling himself 'The Alchemist'. He says

I am not an evolutionist, materialist, nor a humanist, my philosophy accepts all reasonable things that can be qualified or quantified.

Yet looking at his comments, what sort of things does he class as reasonable? Science, not religion. His ideas of how we know things (epistomology) obviously have restricted what he classes as 'reasonable' and so this leads into the complete opposite of 'open' and 'neutral'.

Reading a handful of his comments, you can see how any conclusion about God, especially the Christian God, existing is considered automatically false (illusion/fantasy), even if it is backed by logic or science. Truly, it seems that his epistomology rigs the game so that only non-religious conclusions are possible. Ultimately, it is a naturalism of the gaps belief, a logical fallacy of begging the question that decides the outcome by definitional fiat.

Look out for it, because it is common, especially amongst academia, to use this tactic in order to appear neutral, rational and objective.
- posted by Alan Grey @ Tuesday, October 25, 2005